NHSSBD or New Headless Short Scale Bass Day

[J Posega]

I came across this bass while looking at cheap hardware on Amazon and put it in my "wishlist" knowing damn well that I never look at stuff I put in there ever again.

Here's the Amazon listing.

Except this time I got a notification that there was a $40 off coupon on the listing. So, having recently celebrated my birthday and having perpetual GAS, I ordered it last week. I've owned a Steinberger Spirit and Hohner B2A (broomstick basses) before and didn't care for the ergonomics, but I like headless in general.

For $180 plus tax Prime Shipped, I took a chance (not a risk because Amazon's return policy is way too generous). The regular price is $220. I didn't even know it was short scale until I read the reviews, if that's any indication of how much of an impulse buy this was.

It's kind of ugly and I'm sad they only had black, but I'm consistently shocked by how good cheap import basses are nowadays. I would've been buying plywood junk with a cooked spaghetti neck if I spent $180 when I started 20 years ago. And to have it headless with a gig bag (never mind that it's pretty thin)... unheard of.

Gonna investigate how it looks without the pickguard, but they're clearly taking a little inspiration from Kiesel with the bevelled body edges. If it looks worse without the guard, I'll experiment with some alternative designs and get one made in a different color.

The thing sticking out the left side is a little wrench to help you crank the thumb wheels. It's held in place by a magnet. You can detune the strings or get them up to DGCF without it, but the little wrench helps get the rest of the way up to E standard.

Playing it for about an hour, the tuners hold steady. The intonation is very close, and may be spot on if I can figure out how to lower the saddles. They use a (sort of needlessly) complicated cam system like the Babicz bridge where the left side grub screw holds it in place and the right side grub screw allows you to lower it up and down.

I think the best course of action is a full neck pocket shim to bring the whole plane of the fretboard higher so I have room to adjust the strings up and down without taking out any adjustment screws.

They really wasted time and money CNC carving and inlaying the logo in the fretboard, and on close inspection there are big gaps around the 12th fret inlay, but I can remedy that with some inlay stickers.

They list the fingerboard as maple. In fact, the description says the whole thing is maple, though a separate listing for a the same bass doesn't state the fretboard wood and says the body is basswood, which I believe more than solid maple since the bass is pretty light. I'm led to believe this fingerboard is dyed maple or some sort of composite maybe. Looks fine to me, and feels smooth. I like the offset dot inlays.

Fret ends are a little coarse, but not bad. They might be fine after they acclimate more to my living space. The fretwork itself seems decently good, the neck relief is set dead flat and I don't find any high frets, though, as mentioned, the action is higher than I prefer. Still, very playable for a short scale with these trash strings on it (they're nickel, but coarse and dead).

Luckily this bridge and headpiece design accept standard short scale bass strings, so I have plenty of replacement options!

The listing also says they're stainless steel frets! But I have no way to determine if that's true or not. If so, that's great added value for the money.

It's kind of hard to tell, but they even contoured the neck heel a little bit as indicated by the curve you see connecting the lower and upper horns. The gloss black finish - not my favorite when they previously had shell pink - is well done. You can see my ugly mug reflected in it.

You can see it's a one piece maple neck, and the control cavity is big enough to stuff more complex electronics than the stock VVT wiring in there.

Tone: totally subjective, however I can say it's a respectable, but low output bass. The listing says SS pickups (presumably meaning single-single) but they're fairly dark or not as bright as most single coils I've heard, and I don't get any 60-cycle hum when soloing either with the tone wide open. This leads me to believe they're humbuckers. Luckily, they're standard size and can easily be replaced with something else after I've tried some other wiring mods.

I'm withholding rating the bass on any sort of scale until I spend more time with it.

Marks against the bass:

• The 12th fret inlay is ugly, poorly done, and unnecessary but I understand they needed to brand the instrument somehow. I would have preferred a decal on the body like most companies do.
• The routing of the pickguard around the pickups isn't great and the pickguard design itself is kind of ugly.
• The output is low enough that my usual somewhat-aggressive playing style doesn't trigger my compressor and the tone is slightly uninspiring.
• The bridge is complicated and it comes with exactly zero instructions on how it works. This would be a frustrating bass for someone who hadn't seen a lot of different basses or guitars and has the patience to inspect each element to figure out how they all work.
• Seriously, only black?

Elements that get a thumbs up:

• Where the heck else can you buy a 30" scale headless bass with a gig bag and a ridiculously generous return policy for this cheap?
• It balances well and isn't heavy.
• Ergonomically it's miles ahead of broomstick headless basses that don't have a body.
• The fretwork is pretty good, and it was playable right out of the box. Folks that prefer around 2mm string height at the 12th fret would be over the moon at the action on this bass.
• It takes single ball end short scale bass strings.
• It would make a great electronics mod platform.
• The bass should fit in an overhead bin if you wanna use it as your travel companion, but I'd get a much better gig bag first. I don't know if I'd even take the one it comes with out of the house.

Would I recommend this bass? Yes, but only if you're willing to sit down and figure out how to adjust the bridge to your liking. For $220, I hesitated and just saved it for later. For the price I paid, $180 (sorry, the coupon is gone now), it was an easy impulse buy with leftover GAS money. It's definitely worth $180 and probably worth $220.

You can get it in blueburst for $236 too.

 

[abarson]

That's an interesting model and in general I like the design.
That said, the bridge gives me the heebie-geebies, especially the thumb screws. I would be worried about the hex socket stripping out while putting on new strings. I hope yours lasts.

 

[J Posega]

That's an interesting model and in general I like the design.
That said, the bridge gives me the heebie-geebies, especially the thumb screws. I would be worried about the hex socket stripping out while putting on new strings. I hope yours lasts.

I see what you mean, but like I said, they’re easy to turn by hand up to D standard and then I get out the wrench. It takes very little leverage to get up to E standard and I could probably tune them up further without coming anywhere near stripping out the hex sockets. I’m more concern about the gear mechanism inside the bridge giving out before that.

 

[Mechayoshi]

Glad you got a decent one! Gotta say I like the increasing normalization of headless instruments using traditional strings. I really think that, along with the normal 'full' body shapes are finally driving them forward. Eager to see under that pickguard however. Maybe they had to do that to not be too big of a ripoff (?) but that's he only thing I hate about the looks.

 

[J Posega]

Glad you got a decent one! Gotta say I like the increasing normalization of headless instruments using traditional strings. I really think that, along with the normal 'full' body shapes are finally driving them forward. Eager to see under that pickguard however. Maybe they had to do that to not be too big of a ripoff (?) but that's he only thing I hate about the looks.

Way better but more generic without the pickguard. Also gets rid of the screw head I was worried about smashing my knuckle against when popping the G string. Now I have to figure out how to fill/cover those unsightly, chipped out screw holes.

 

[Mechayoshi]

^ Cool, thanks for showing this. It does look better. Now I wish I could see the other colors like that. I had a black bass a while back where I changed the bridge. Since it was a beater anyway, I camouflaged spare holes by making sure the spot was smooth and painting a little with a small brush over the screw hole. I didn’t even plug the holes, of course that was down in a less obvious spot so ymmv here.

 

[J Posega]

Unfortunately, these holes are fairly large and the paint is all chipped, so I might need to fill them. Or I might just put a little sticker over each one and call it a day.

I definitely want more treble out of the bass which might make up a little bit for how low the output is. Next step is opening up the control cavity to see what value pots and cap are in it.